Man accused of using sweets to silence children during years of alleged abuse

Friday 23 February 2018

A man accused of abusing three children during his teenage years, using sweets to manipulate them into silence during the 1970s and 1980s, is standing trial in the Royal Court.

49-year-old Antony John Quant denies 23 counts of abuse, including 10 counts of indecent assault, eight counts of rape and five counts of sodomy, on two girls and a boy over a 10-year-period.

In the first day of the trial yesterday, Crown Advocate Emma Hollywood gave the jury of seven women and five men pictures of all three children during the time the alleged abuse is claimed to have happened. She said this was to enable them to see the complainants – who are now adults – as children to understand the reason why they didn’t report the abuse earlier when they give evidence.

Advocate Hollywood told the Court, which is being presided over by the Deputy Bailiff Tim Le Cocq, that Mr Quant carried out the first abuse when he was 10 years old, which is the age of criminal responsibility. She also told them: “Consent is not an issue; they were too young to consent to being touched this way.”

She alleged that Mr Quant used sweets and chocolate to manipulate the children into silence while he sexually abused them, with one of the girls reporting that she always associated buying sweets and chocolate with being touched by him.

Advocate Hollywood described this - and some of his other techniques - as his ‘signature’, as he allegedly treated all three children the same. “There are clear similarities in how he abused them and clear similarities of his behaviour to them,” she stated.

The jury heard that one of the girls had given her mum her stained clothes after she was allegedy first raped by Mr Quant, but her mum thought she had started her period so gave her sanitary towels.

The Crown explained how each of the three people who claim they were sexually abused told different people about it at different times, urging the jury to take note of “who knew what, when” and claiming that the allegations are “independent of one another.”

The Jury were also told that one of the girls had made a formal complaint to Jersey Police in 1992, but the investigation was closed in 1993. The Police then reopened the case in February 2016, and approached the people accusing Mr Quant of sexual abuse.  

During the afternoon sitting, the Court heard from the first witness – one of the girls who accused Mr Quant of abusing her in the 1980s. She said that she clearly remembers the first time she was indecently assaulted, saying she felt “stunned and shocked” and that she instantly told herself, “I can never ever tell anybody about this.”

She added: “You feel so ashamed. I felt I had been violated by someone I trusted.”

The trial continues this morning.